Reality Check
by chibiness87
Summary: She cannot do this again. Nikki introspective piece. Spoilers for Fraternal pt 2. T for language.


**Reality Check**, by **chibiness87**

**Rated**: **T** (language)

A Nikki introspective piece. Spoilers for Fraternal part 2. Not beta'd. Angst-fest ahead.

* * *

It's later that night, after the fight with Jack and she had stormed away, that the call comes in. She almost doesn't pick up, doesn't want to speak to anyone right now; just wants curl up in front of the TV with a mug of tea. The kettle is boiled, the milk open on the countertop, ready. But duty rears up its ugly head and she answers the phone.

"Nikki. It's Thomas." There is a rough catch in his voice and it freezes her. She knows that tone. "Jack, he uh, god, Jack's in the hospital, Nikki. They said it was a hit and run. He's alive, but they said he doesn't look good."

There is just a buzzing in her ears after that. She gets the name of the hospital and leaves. (It will be a good 36 hours before she returns to find the door unlocked and the TV still on and the now soured milk sitting on the bench in the kitchen.) The white noise fills her head, and her body reacts on autopilot. It's the same white noise as when Leo had called her from Budapest. _I'm afraid I've got some terrible news_. It's the same white noise that filled her head the whole way back from Afghanistan.

She had been so mad at Jack earlier. Had yelled at him, stormed away from him, and what if that was the last time she saw him?

_This cannot be happening. This _cannot_ be happening. No. no. nononono_no_. Not again. Not so soon after Harry and Leo and NO!_

Her mind is a constant loop of panic thoughts as she rushes through the hospital. Looking, looking, _looking_ for him. _Alive_. Thomas said he was still alive, but _alive_ and _fine_ are two completely different things. She knows this. She deals with people who were alive right up until they aren't, until they stopped fighting to stay alive. She will cope and deal if he is battered and bruised but he cannot go and fucking die on her! So clings to the _alive_ and pushes all other thoughts away.

Until she sees him.

And for the first time since the phone call, everything, the white noise and the thoughts and the panic, stops, and she falters. She cannot do this again. Not _again_. And while she knows that she has to do this, that _Jack_ needs her to do this, all she can see is the tubing and the bandages and the swelling and dear god, they said he was still alive but for how much longer?

* * *

Later, when they are sure he is as stable as he can be without surgery, the doctors let them in. There will be trace evidence they will need to catch whoever did this. She forces herself to change into the white coveralls that are a standard in her bag now, when the word _pathology_ manages to get past her mental filters.

"There is no pathology because there is no body." Her voice is quiet, shaking. But the words she says are firm. He is not dead. He is alive. Alive. Alivealivealive. There is no body because he is alive. So, therefore, there is no pathology because there is no body. There is evidence. But no pathology. Pathology is for dead people, and there is no dead person here.

There is just Jack. Kind, sweet, caring _Jack_ with a quick temper and a belief in a justice system that doesn't always work, and a too a big heart that he hides from almost everyone.

She can do this. She is Dr Nikki fucking Alexander and she will find the person who did this and run that fuckwit over with his own fucking car. The anger she feels coursing through her veins is new, and it startles her. But it is something other than panic and white noise, and so she holds on to it, grasps it tightly and moves over to his bedside. Thomas is talking about contusions, but suddenly all she wants to do is tell him to shut the fuck up and let her hold his hand and apologise.

_Sorry, I'm sorry. So, so sorry, you hear me Jack? You hear me? You're gonna get through this and then we, you and me, we're going to have a talk. But you don't get to give up on me. Not you too. _The words she wants to say don't pass her lips though, she just brushes her thumb over his battered and bruised knuckles.

Thomas is the one who notices the bruising around his neck, and suddenly the anger is back. This is no hit and run, this is _attempted murder_. Someone tried to kill him. _Him_. Yeah, she knows he can be a bit of a pig-headed idiot sometimes, but kill him? They need to check to see if he got a piece of his attacker (even down he will not have been out. Not the Jack that she knows, the Jack that she... what, exactly?), and move to take the ventilator away. But her hands are shaking and she doesn't want to let go of his hand, so when Thomas gently pushes her aside she lets him.

They get what they need (she knew Jack was a fighter), but before they can do much more than look up the alarms begin wailing, and then there is a nurse saying something about surgery (now, dammit, they need to move _now!)_, and then she is being pushed away, her hand slipping from his.

It makes her heart feel bereft.

Jesus, why didn't she know before now she's gone and fallen in love with him?

* * *

End


End file.
